The pirates moved apart in the narrow alley, one to each side of her, trapping her between them. She took several wheezing breaths but her voice was still no more than a croak. Blood dripped from her mouth and she was soaked to the skin. She brushed away the hair that was plastered to her face with her shoulder and her attackers used the slight lapse to attack. They came at her, one from each side, blades slashing in deadly arcs.
Selena’s sword had longer reach than their shorter blades. They had to come in close, and despite her wounds and the rain and her cold, Selena’s sword flashed with blinding speed. In seconds, both men were bleeding and cursing and backing off to reassess their strategy.
Mallen limped to his feet. “Bitch.” He drew his own blade. The steel glinted as lightning flashed above. “This ain’t goin’ to be easy for you now.”
Selena readied her sword. The alley was too narrow to swing wide unless she chose to jump in the middle of the three men; a poor strategy. And then Mallen’s hand blurred. Selena dodged what she thought was a flung knife and was blinded by shit-stinking mud instead.
Instinct and years of training with the Aluren saved her.
Still blind, she brought her sword up on her left and felt the steel clash with one pirate’s weapon. She kicked out with her right leg, catching the second pirate in the gut. But his cutlass sliced her upper arm and she felt a peculiar tingle—along with biting pain—that was her own hot blood pouring out of the gash. Mallen hobbled towards her and the first pirate was attacking again.
Selena wiped the mud from her eyes and nearly paid for it with her life. The first pirate’s blade whistled at her head and she ducked under, but it was close enough she felt its wind, even in the relentless rain. She jabbed her sword out and felt it punch through the man’s midsection. Her wounded arm screamed in pain from the effort but she pushed it aside as she had been trained to do. Still crouched low, she swept her foot in a low arc, catching Mallen at the shins as he neared. He screamed and went down again in a spray of mud.
Selena retrieved her sword from the first pirate’s midsection and swung upward, coming out of her crouch. Her blade sang as it slid against the second pirate’s cutlass and both weapons thudded against the wall. She held her sword with both hands, pinning his blade. The pirate’s left arm was free and he grabbed Selena by the jaw and slammed the side of her face against the wall. Her cheek scraped against old, splintered wood and she grunted in pain. She pulled off the wall, swung her sword back and then forward, and cleaved through the pirate’s arm below the elbow as he tried to block. The man shrieked into the storm as his arm fell to the mud at their feet with a sickening thump. The front of Selena’s tunic darkened in a wash of the man’s spurting blood. He dropped his sword to clutch at this stump, staggering backwards and howling
Selena found she could speak again, but now she didn’t need a spell or her sirrak summoned. One man lay dead, curled around a gut wound that had bled him out. Another slumped against the alley, holding his severed arm, his face gray with shock. Mallen cowered at Selena’s feet as she leveled the tip of her sword at his throat.
“Tell me why I should spare you,” she said hoarsely, her breath coming in harsh gasps. “Tell me how I won’t find you stalking me again if I let you go.”
“You won’t, I promise,” Mallen whimpered. “I promise you won’t.”
“You will,” said a voice, and then the man in the black long coat swooped down like a raven. With practiced ease, he drew his knife across Mallen’s throat, opening a grotesque gash. Blood poured. Mallen gurgled and gasped and then slumped forward, face down in the mud.
Selena swung her sword to face the stranger, her hands shaking. She had forgotten about him. He paid her no mind, but wiped his blade clean on the back of the dead man’s coat and tucked it back into his belt. He then pulled the collar of his long coat up to better cover his neck.
“How about this rain?” he asked with a grin.
Selena blinked, momentarily stunned silent. “What…Who are you?”
“Name’s Julian,” the man said, offering a black-gloved hand to shake. Selena kept her sword between them. He shrugged, his rakish smile not diminishing in the least. “Captain Julian Tergus, if you want to stay formal about it.”
“You just…killed a man… in cold blood,” Selena stammered.
The man smirked. “Cold blood? This one would’ve jumped you tonight, gimpy leg and all. Maybe bring six men instead of two. Look here.” He bent over Mallen’s corpse, inspecting the inside of the man’s wrist, and then, not finding what he was looking for, he used his knife again to cut away the sleeve of Mallen’s coat.
“What are you doing?”
“There it is. See here?” Julian Tergus showed her a symbol burned into Mallen’s upper arm; a shiny scar in the shape of a lick of flame. “He’s part of a pirate collective. You let him live after hurting him this bad—to say nothing of the humiliation—and he’ll bring the full force of his collective down on you. Don’t know which collective; this symbol doesn’t look familiar to me but…” He glanced about the alley. “It’s best if we move along, smartly now.”
“Should we?” Selena asked, crossing her arms. The cold seeped into her skin like the rain seeped into her clothes. “You just stood there. Watching.”
All traces of humor left the man’s face, diminishing the handsomeness that was cut into his angular features. His hair was dark and somewhat short—the rain plastered it down over his gray-green eyes in the front but his neck was bare. A small gold hoop pierced one ear.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
Julian Tergus was quiet for a moment, and then jerked a thumb to the pirate who bled from the stump of his arm. The pirate’s skin was ghastly white and he moaned.
“You going to do something about him or do you want me to? Not a good idea to leave witnesses.” His hand went again to the knife on his belt where there was also a flintlock holstered and two scimitars hung around his waist.
Selena backed away from Julian to the injured pirate. The rain was letting up. She sheathed her sword and knelt beside the man.
“I had better not regret this.”
She took hold of his arm above the place where she had sliced it off and gripped it hard. With her other hand, she poured seawater from her ampulla over the bloody stump, causing the man to cry out, then sought the sky to where the moon floated, hidden though it was behind storm clouds.
She closed her eyes and murmured. “Illuria.”
An orange hue glowed under her hand, and spread over the pirate’s stump. Selena opened her eyes to watch the skin knit together, leaving a raw, puckered scar.
The pirate rolled his head and peered blearily at Selena. “We were going… to hurt you. Why did you…?”
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Selena snapped. “I can’t promise you’ll live.”
“Why…?”
“Because it’s my duty to help,” she replied with a pointed glance at Julian Tergus, who was watching her through the smoke of a fresh cigarillo, shaking his head.
She stood and almost fell, catching herself on the wall. The healing had drained her strength in a way the battle with the pirates hadn’t. She staggered toward the street.